Royal weddings are bad for tourism

March 29th, 2011

The wedding of Charles and Diana accompanied a 15 percent drop in U.K. tourism, while that of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson saw an 8 percent decline from the average for that time of year. Perhaps tourists don’t like knowing they’re officially not the center of attention. On top of that historic bad news, the Department of Homeland Security has announced a travel advisory for Britain during that period because of increased fears of terrorism, so that eliminates Americans, and they’re generally thought to be the ones who care. In additional bad news, the economy is predicted to take a £5 billion hit, dwarfing any uptick in mug sales.

In fact, I’m traveling to London this spring — in May, purposefully avoiding royal wedding season.